1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an exercising apparatus including a housing with a plurality of friction discs and a pulley wheel wound with a strap and resiliently biased to the wound position.
2. Prior Art
Devices of the general class have been developed in the past which include a housing, a resiliently biased pulley wheel wound with a strap, friction discs for resisting rotation of the pulley wheel and unwinding of the strap, handle means on the housing and another handle means connected to the strap. For example, a device of this type shown is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,995,853 to Deluty. Other devices of the general type are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 518,967 to Poole and U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,357 to Bern.
Previous devices of this class have offered certain disadvantages or features which have limited their usefulness or popularity. For example, referring to the Deluty patent, the friction discs are located within the housing so the device would have to be disassembled to replace the discs. This is disadvantageous because it would be desirable to permit quick replacement of a set of discs with another set of discs capable of exerting an appreciatably different frictional force. For example, an apparatus owned by a family could have one set of discs which exert a stronger force for a man and another set with a much weaker force for children. While these devices do normally permit some adjustment of the frictional force, replacing the entire set of discs would offer a much greater potential range of forces. In addition, sometimes the friction discs become contaminated and lose their proper frictional properties. It would be desirable to quickly change these discs but this would not be possible with the Deluty device.